Friday, November 19, 2010

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Wednesday, November 17, 2010 6:44 PM, ESTTomorrow Ally has a HAMA draw. We will find out the results next Wednesday; to see if we are headed back to NYC, or if we need to wait it out longer.

Ally has been doing well lately. She is enjoying school. One of her favorite games to play is "Circle Time." This is when we all circle up (stuffed animals included) and we sing, Ally reads a story, and other activities happen.

That's it for now. Thanks for checking in on us!

P.S. The new picture is Ally "knitting." She likes to copy what we do, and I have been knitting like crazy lately!

Who's Buying This Election? Close to Half the Money Fueling Outside Ads Comes From Undisclosed Donors

Of the nearly $300 million spent by outside groups so far in attempts to influence the election, the public remains completely in the dark about who’s behind 42 percent of these expenditures, an Election Day analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics indicates.

Some groups spending big bucks in advance of the election -- namely nonprofits that classified as 501(c) groups under the U.S. tax code -- are not required by law to disclose their donors. And their political investments this year have proliferated, with some of these groups taking advantage of the new campaign finance landscape that no longer prohibits their use of corporate cash in the final stretch of the election.

At the federal level, more than $123 million has been donated by anonymous sources to nonprofit organizations that have run television and radio advertisements, sent out direct mailers and bought up Internet ad space ahead of today’s election.

Many of these nonprofits are affiliated with explicitly political groups registered under section 527 of U.S. tax code -- political action committees, “super PACs” or other 527 organizations, entities that must disclose their donors. Oftentimes, one organization’s different legal entities use the same name, so tracking where the money is coming from -- and which one of those legal entities is making the expenditures -- is all the more difficult.

Some of those 501(c) groups include Planned Parenthood, Equality California and American Rights at Work on the left and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, the National Rifle Association and Americans for Prosperity on the right.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a 501(c)6 business association that isn’t required to disclose its donors, ranks as the top outside-spending group that is not a party committee, such as the Democratic National Committee or Republican National Committee. The Chamber has spent $35 million this election cycle on “electioneering communications,” targeted broadcast messages that include a visual or audio reference to federal candidates but don’t expressly advocate for or against those candidates.

The next three of the top five outside spenders are all conservative groups that share office space, operatives and a similar lineage.

American Action Network, a 501(c)4 organization headed by former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), has spent $26.6 million on a combination of general electioneering communications and “independent expenditures” that expressly advocate for or against federal candidates.

Karl Rove, has spent $21.6 on independent expenditures, mostly advocating against Democrats. All of its donors -- many of which are corporations or billionaires -- have been disclosed, as OpenSecrets Blog has previously reported.

American Crossroads’ sister 501(c)4 organization is not required to disclose its donors. This group, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, has spent $17.1 million on independent expenditures and electioneering communications.

The only liberal-aligned group in the top five outside spenders is the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU has spent more than $15.7 million on ads and other communications as it works to elect Democrats.

Overall, for every $1 a liberal group has spent on these expenditures, a conservative group has spent $2, the Center’s research shows.

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Wednesday, November 3, 2010 8:04 PM, EDT Every night we read Ally 2 books after we have hooked her up to her pump; one of which is a goodnight book. She has been choosing Good Night Moon for the past couple of months. We have gotten into the habit of letting her choose what is jumping over the moon. Here is what transpired this evening:Daddy: What is jumping over the moon tonight?Ally: Pa pa pa pa, something that starts with pa pa paDaddy: Penguins?Ally: PIGGIES!!!!!Daddy: OkAlly: Tomorrow night it will be wa wa wa dubba dubba dubba doubleyou WORM!!!!!Daddy: WOW! "In the great green room....."

What a fun kiddo we have!

On Tuesday Ally got to be in a marching band at school. All the kids had instruments (Ally had something that shakes and make noise) and marched around the playground. She LOVED it! She is VERY secretive about what happens at school, and rarely shares anything that happens there, but she was willing to tell us about the marching band. In fact, we now have several homemade instruments around our house. Super fun!

As of right now we are in a holding pattern for 3f8 treatment again. She gets HAMA drawn on the 18th, with results on the 24th. Hopefully it will be a great Thanksgiving with plans to go to NYC the following week. (Anything is better than the Emergency Room Thanksgiving of 2009.)

I don't think though that I've ever realized until today how much like Christmas voting is to me. It's all anticipation. Now I feel letdown and worried; it's all over for me, but the counting. And I'm afraid that's going to be really *ugly.*

Next life, I'd like to live in a country full of patient realists instead of antsy two-year olds.

Home is where one starts from. As we grow olderThe world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicatedOf dead and living. Not the intense momentIsolated, with no before and after,But a lifetime burning in every momentAnd not the lifetime of one man onlyBut of old stones that cannot be deciphered.There is a time for the evening under starlight,A time for the evening under lamplight(The evening with the photograph album).Love is most nearly itselfWhen here and now cease to matter.Old men ought to be explorersHere or there does not matterWe must be still and still movingInto another intensityFor a further union, a deeper communionThrough the dark cold and the empty desolation,The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast watersOf the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

About Me

Water gathering
most days I wait
through blue and sun
till dusk
or even later
and the rose has faded
to lavender, to gray
some days, the sleet
has started
and the leaves underfoot
are slick with ice
somehow I'm never sorry
and never learn
one night I waited
till the stars were out
dropped the bucket into
sound, only felt the weight
of it filling
and the night full of stars
and the river full of stars
and the bucket full of stars
come morning, the coffee
is also full of stars